


Burn it all down

by rubric



Series: Valentina au Ignis - OC Stories [1]
Category: Red Rising Series - Pierce Brown
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-28
Updated: 2020-07-28
Packaged: 2021-03-05 18:52:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,413
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25560121
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rubric/pseuds/rubric
Summary: Valentina au Ignis can't live up to her family's expectations.  That's fine.  She'll live up to her own.
Series: Valentina au Ignis - OC Stories [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1853635
Comments: 5
Kudos: 4





	Burn it all down

Valentina au Ignis is sitting in her family garden.She’s 13 years old.There’s a hollow in a tree that’s her favorite spot to hide.She’s nestled perfectly in the hole, almost as if it was designed for her diminutive Gold figure.She likes it because it faces the Ganymede shipyards, and she can watch the starships being test flown in the distance. The manic maneuvers look like lightning bugs darting in the sky.

In her hands, she cradles her latest treasure.“Gri-m’s —airy —les,” the faded cover reads, by some unknown Earth author.It’s a real book, not a datapad, actually made from genuine paper.She found it secured under biogenLock in the hyperbaric preservation archive of her father’s library, where he keeps his most valued collections.It took Val almost two weeks to hack the biogenLock mechanism and find the right opportunity to steal it out.She loves the way it feels and spends almost as much time running her fingers over her the faded gilded letters on the cover as she does reading the words. 

From her hiding spot, Val hears footsteps.She freezes.She is frantically looking for a place to stash the book when a tall, scarred Aureate appears and snatches it out of her hands.His cruel Gold eyes are glinting with amusement as he scans the pages. 

“Earth stories about made up monsters?Pitiful.Stupid stories from a washed-up planet.” 

He rips it in half.

In a flash, Valentina is up with her knife.She brandishes it menacingly at the Gold.His shadow alone is probably twice her size. 

He only laughs at her.“What are you going to do, little Bronzie? Slag off.”

She rushes him anyway and he grabs her wrist, easily circling it with his broad hand.

He then slaps her hard across her face, knocking her back two meters. 

Valentina tastes blood and fixes a look of murder at the stranger as he laughs and walks off, twirling a razor.

Later, she learns that the man is her father’s new Lancer, Tertius au Cico. 

The more she learns, the less she likes.Tertius is from Mars and not like the other Golds on Ganymede.He drinks heavily.He uses Pinks, slapping them around as well, and probably worse.He makes the Brown cook attempt to replicate his favorite Martian dishes over and over again, and beats her when she fails, despite not having any of the key ingredients on hand at the Rim. 

Cico talks openly of his many “heroic” achievements at the Mars Institute, where he earned his Peerless Scar, for everyone to overhear, no discretion.Even Val knows that’s supposed to be kept secret. _Probably all made up, anyway._ She mutters. 

The last time he beats the Brown, she finds Tertius’s stash of favorite Venusian whiskey. 

Carrying a syringe and the bottle, she sneaks into the stables with the Sunbloods. “Don’t kill me,” she mutters, backing into the furthest corner of the stall of the smallest one.It still dwarfs her. 

She waits three hours for the Sunblood to relieve himself.Using the syringe, she gathers some of the pooled liquid.She smiles as she ejects it into the top of the bottle, giving it a light swirl.

Returning the bottle to its shelf, she’s smiling. She’s still smiling as she crawls back into bed.The next day, when she sees Tertius in the garden roughly handling a Pink, bottle in hand, it takes all her willpower not to smile even more.

———

Every afternoon, Tertius practices with his Razor with the other Lancers.Val is there too.

 _Every Ignis is a warrior_ , she’s heard the lecture a hundred times, along with the stories of her Iron Gold ancestors.She’s Ignis in only one way, she thinks.Fire.The fire that burns in her, the Latin meaning of her family name.She clutches the lightning bolt sigil around her neck. 

She’s fifteen now and her parents have given up hope she’ll fill out physically into her heritage.Still, they require her to train with the others, even though she can read in their faces they think it’s useless, wasting time training a tiny, broken aberration like her.

She counts every second until the training session ends and she can leave and get back to her books and tinkering. 

Every three weeks, Val has her turn as Tertius’s sparring partner.At a broad two and a quarter meters tall, he has the advantage of size and reach.Without fail, he makes it a point to cut her somewhere.Usually a small graze on her forearm, her side, her shoulder.Never on the face.His lips turn up in satisfaction every time he makes a hit. 

They move into their Kravat opening stances, waiting the for the signal from the duelmaster to begin.In the space before the sparring starts, Val thinks about the arm mount holoscreen she stole from the armory.She’s pondering how she could modify it to scramble the messages, so they appear like love notes from the other lancers, when Tertius lands a surprise hit with his razor. 

He takes an ear.Valentina feels the blood dripping down her neck, pooling at the top of her breast.

The duelmaster looks furious.No start signal was given.Tertius just gives his beautiful, cruel smile, and shrugs.

“Sorry my goodwoman, my mistake!”His apology is the epitome of grace and manners.

The medBot whizzes over and makes the repair, while Valentina listens to her father reprimand his lancer weakly.He sounds almost bored.

While the ear is being re-attached, Valentina clutches her fists.

——

Val’s sixteen. She decides to take her training perhaps a _little_ more seriously, now that she’s decided to apply to the Institute.She stays after her turn to watch the other lancers spar.Tertius is there, and his turn today is with Kaeso. 

Kaeso’s young, a few years older than Valentina.They grew up together on Ganymede, although her father disapproved of her consorting with his family. _“The Ignis don’t cavort with lesser Golds,”_ he always said, frowning.Kaeso’s kind though, and brings her fruit cakes from Io whenever they return from their escort missions.Valentina kissed him once, or tried to, when she was fifteen.He laughed, and pulled her wrists away gently. 

For the past 3 weeks, Tertius has been ranting on and on about some Gold called “the Reaper” and his glorious performance at the Mars Institute.Something about embarrassing the teachers, or something.In emulation of his new hero, Tertius adjusts his Razor so the secondary switch turns it into the shape of a slingBlade. Valentina rolls her eyes.

Tertius’s signature move these days, whenever he’s able to disarm his opponent, is to hit the Reaper switch and bringing the slingBlade shaped razor to curl around his opponents neck.He then gives some big speech, probably something he heard the Reaper say on the holoNet, and makes his sparring partner beg in some humiliating fashion.After the fifth time, it lost its charm, _although Tertius probably still thinks it makes him look like a gorydamn Conqueror_ , Valentina thinks in disgust.

This time, Valentina watches, and she smiles. 

The match ends in grappling.Kaeso yields, but it’s not enough for Tertius, who crushes Kaeso’s wrist until he drops his razor. The duelmasters frown, but don’t say anything.Kaeso waits on his knees for Tertius’s showboat move.

Triumphantly, Tertius flicks the switch at his razor and waits for the blade to curve.He’s already clearing his throat for his speech. 

He’s starting to notice something’s wrong.The blade shudders, and then starts to move rapidly in and out of shapes.There’s an awkward silence from the crowd watching the match.

Tertius brings the blade up to scrutinize it.Kaeso, unsure of what’s happening, looks up.It finally lands on its shape.

The Cico family motto is _“Vincit qui se vincit.”_ Tertius is constantly telling everyone this with pride.It means, “He conquers who conquers himself”

In small letters, forms the shape of words in the polyenne fiber of the razor:

_“Stercore qui se Stercore.”_

“He shits who shits himself.” 

Tertius’s face blooms red.Beside him, Kaeso’s eyes go wide, then he starts laughing. 

The laughter spills out to the rest of the crowd watching the sparring match.Tertius is apoplectic.He storms off pounding dust with his boots.

Everyone is still laughing, except for Valentina.She just plants her feet, and smiles, and thinks of fire.


End file.
